World champs in a crisis (8 February 1999)

8 February 1999

World champs in a crisis

Sa'adi Thawfeeq

Sri Lanka cricket is at a crisis. No matter what excuses are trotted out, the world champions are not performing to the capabilities they displayed when they won the World Cup, three years ago.

The Carlton and United World Series Cup is the third straight one-day tournament Sri Lanka has failed to enter the finals since their successful tour to England last July.

The performances of the team in recent tournaments has become a matter of national concern, with the World Cup coming up in three months time in England.

The Sri Lankans went to England with a certain purpose - to beard the English lion in its own den. Having accomplished that successfully, the team has thereafter, sad to say, showed a lackadaisical approach in the Dhaka tournament where they were knocked out in the semi-finals. They were totally under-prepared in Sharjah where they lost all four qualifying games.

Much was expected on the tour of Australia, but the team fell flat on its face. How they performed there everyone knows. There was no sting in the tail and missing was the hunger for success. There was no commitment by the players. They were more or less going through the motions. This was not a team the nation and the cricketing world at large had come to accept as the world champions of one-day cricket.

Judging by the performances of the team in Australia there seems to be something wrong somewhere. We are led to believe that politics within the Board of Control for Cricket in Sri Lanka (BCCSL) has led to a total lack of coordination and communication somewhere down the line that there has hardly been any dialogue between the team management and those who matter back home.

The appointment of Daryl Foster, the former Western Australia and Kent coach as advisor to the team when there was already a coach in Roy Dias, seems rather strange. It could either mean that there are certain shortcomings on the part of Dias or the BCCSL has discovered that Sri Lanka still require the services of a foreign coach (or advisor) to keep pace with the rest of the cricketing world. Having committed themselves by making appointments till the World Cup, the BCCSL may have found out that it had no option but to appoint someone from outside in addition to what they have.

Rather than point fingers at the players and condemn them for the poor performances, the major part of the blame should be taken by the BCCSL, who over the past three years or so have had no strategic plan to build up a second string team to compensate for any losses through injuries etc, in the senior side.

There has been a dearth of Test cricket played by Sri Lanka which has led to batsmen being unable to concentrate long enough in the one-day games and bat out the fifty overs. One-day cricket has to be supplemented with Test cricket. The BCCSL took the view that there would be no Test matches played by Sri Lanka after the England tour till the World Cup.

Whereas all the other countries are engaged in playing Test matches leading upto the World Cup, Sri Lanka are the only nation without any Test matches at all. The recent decision by the Asian Cricket Council (ACC) to play an Asian Test championship later this month may provide Sri Lanka with the opportunity to play a couple of Tests before the World Cup.

A weak administration has also allowed things to go out of hand. Otherwise, how can one explain why injured players are not being sent home, but retained in the team. If a player cannot recover say within two weeks and if he cannot play a meaningful role in the tournament, he must be sent home. The common excuse that is trotted out is that the players require the services of the physio at all times to recover.

Paying the players handsome emoluments has softened the players up so much that it had driven the enthusiasm out of them. What the team requires is motivation if they are to get anywhere in the World Cup. Where that will come from will be the 64,000 dollar question.

The 'Daily News' spoke to five reputable cricketing personalities and asked for their views of what has gone wrong with Sri Lanka cricket. Their views are published herewith alongside ours.

Ranjan Madugalle, former Sri Lanka Test captain and presently one of the most respected ICC match referees.

"In the last World Cup we had the talent and the conditions that also helped us. But what has happened is other team have cottoned onto that and either perfected their methods or found our weaknesses in the system. Because of that we are not having the same level of success we had before. We have done nothing to change that. We are just carrying on the same way we've done five years ago. We are still going with pinch hitting in the first 15 overs and half bowlers in the middle, we are not playing the right bowlers in the right conditions. In any environment, things don't remain consistent all the time. I feel that is one of the reasons for our poor performances today.

The best example was in Perth, (in the Carlton and United match) which is the fastest track in the world. We played only two fast bowlers (when we had five on the tour) and we had England at 38/4, but nothing to support. So we can't make fundamental errors like that with our limited resources. The Perth incident to my mind is a shocker. At a point when we are not playing well, we have contributed to our own problems by some of our thinking, which I think is not right.

In the subcontinent, with half bowlers and on slow tracks you can contain, and our fielding at that time was agile to support it. But when you go into other conditions which have hard true tracks or wickets that seam, half bowlers are not as effective. So we must look for genuine frontline bowlers who can use those conditions.

Our fielding standards have dropped because the players have aged by another 3-4 years. Their level of fitness is not as great and it is borne about by the fact that there are far greater injuries than before. The human body can only take that much.

If we are to be a force to be reckoned with at international cricket, we must have quality fast bowlers backed up by at least one quality spinner or two. At the moment we are very heavily dependent on just one spinner and that is just not good enough to win matches.

One of the biggest problems we face is that our exposure to top international cricket is limited to only the top 15 or 20 players and as such, we don't have much depth of exposure to international cricket. I firmly believe that our domestic cricket is nowhere close to most other countries. So the gap between domestic cricket and international cricket is pretty vast. As a result of that we need to have an 'A' team also playing international cricket on a regular basis, or pick and chose 3 or 4 outstanding individuals who could play in good domestic tournaments outside. That I think is the biggest asset Australia has. Their domestic cricket is so high that the transition from domestic to Test cricket is minimal. Whereas in Sri Lanka, you have to serve a period of apprenticeship as well. If you take the success rate in the last couple of years of 'A' team tours to Sri Lanka, we have got hammered out of sight by every side that has come here, which is a reflection on the state of our second string. We need to build that up because otherwise, you can't make changes as well."

Shelley Wickramasingha, the most senior administrator in club cricket today counting 24 years as president of Bloomfield C & AC and perhaps the only Sri Lankan to witness all six World Cup tournaments from 1975 to 1996.

"Sri Lanka are definitely not playing to their potential. Except for Arjuna Ranatunga, no one in the team is playing well. Batsmen are making the same mistakes over and over again. Why the manager and the coach cannot correct them I don't know.

A coach in my view should not be a correcter of bad batsmanship. He should also be a motivator. He should be a man whom the players should look upto. I would prefer to see an all-rounder as a coach, someone like Michael Tissera, Stanley Jayasinghe or D.S. de Silva in charge of the team. If I got a choice I would go for D.S. de Silva. Not only is he a good coach, but he is a firm disciplinarian and a fine motivator.

We are lacking in all the areas. With all this lacking I am not surprised we have played so badly. If we are playing well how could we have lost eight matches on the trot. Shortly after winning the World Cup we should have started putting in youngsters. Stamina, fitness, poor reflexes have suffered due to age.

Youngsters must play a full season of domestic cricket. All can't be the Ranatunga's, the De Silva's and the Ranasinghe's. The situation is serious enough for the Cricket Board to appoint a committee of 2-3 administrators or cricketers and rectify the situation immediately.

The boys should realise they that they are playing for the country and not for themselves. They should produce better results. After all they hae been well looked after by gifts of land, houses handsome wages etc. All this is due to weak administration.

Our media has put them on a higher pedestal than they should have, so that they have lost their true identities. Most of them have forgotten their beginnings.

There is one man who can do something about it and it is the Sports Minister. He has the power and the clout to step in. Unless the present situation is put right, our team will end up shamelessly at the bottom rungs."

Anura Tennekoon, captain of Sri Lanka's World Cup teams in 1975 and 1979 and presently head of the Sri Lanka Cricket Foundation.

"Initially, there is lack of competition for places in the national team. The seniors are not being pushed for places. There is a general shortfall of suitable replacements to fill the senior side.

This is because proper steps had not been taken to form a development squad to feed the senior side. The absence of a Cricket Academy is a major setback to our development.

The standard of our domestic competition will reflect on the players' performance internationally. Our domestic cricket is nowhere near to that of say Australia or South Africa. Therefore, there is a lack of competition initially. As a result, our players are not ready enough to be thrown into the deep end of international cricket.

Players who perform consistently in our Premier championship should be picked for national representation only over a period of time, because the standard of our domestic cricket is low. The players should be groomed on fast pitches where they can get used to the pace and the bounce." SIDATH WETTIMUNY former Sri Lanka Test opener and national selector, and presently ICC match referee.

"I dont think there is anything drastically wrong with the team. What the team is going through is part of the game. No team can sustain the aspirations far too much all the time. Since 1996 we have played superb cricket. We peaked during the World Cup and sustained it for a long time. I don't think any other country who had won the World Cup performed as well as we have done. The present decline of the team, is natural. To expect the team to sustain their winning performances is just not cricket.

All is not black. We are currently undergoing a slump, with injuries and bad luck. Chaminda Vaas has not been getting the early breakthroughs that we normally expect of him. The brilliant catches are not taken early in the day. The team had a major problem with Aravinda de Silva not being there for all the matches. That little bit of luck is missing.

If at all, the present slump would only do them a world of good. We will have to go to the World Cup with experience. But after that, we should bring in a couple of guys even at the expense of losing a few matches.

We should be courageous and bold enough to pursue with youngsters. The talent is there but it has to be harnessed gradually. One should pursue with youngsters and give them the confidence to make it rather than break it. Confidence plays a huge part in this game. I think players like Russel Arnold and Indika de Saram, whom I consider is the right-handed version of Sanath Jayasuriya should be persisted with. After so many failures, Marvan Atapattu has become a permanent fixure in the team. Given the confidence Mahela Jayawardene is making runs.

While players like Arjuna Ranatunga and Aravinda de Silva are there it would be good to groom two or three batsmen. The key is to make fair decisions. What we have done with our batting we have not done with fast bowlers and paid the price."

Ranil Abeynaike, former SSC stalwart and presently general manager and curator of the club.

"Being the world champs of one day cricket, every side want's to beat us. They are counter attacking us by concentrating on tactics and strategies. Currently, we are not getting the opposition thinking. We have not thought of other alternatives if things go wrong.

Much is expected of our cricketers today. Most of them playing at the highest level are blessed with an abundance of talent. It is this talent that has helped many of them to blossom and bloom into world class performers.

When you reach the top every one else wants to beat you. The national side which is in Australia is faced with a similar situation. There is no doubt that their opponents in the competition Australia and England are hell bent on knocking them off their mantle as world one-day champions.

Every international cricket playing nation is looking at the game striving to achieve success. Coaching centres and academies are springing up designed to produce as many top class cricketers. If we are not to be left far behind it is abolutely necessary for us to keep pace with them. Development is through practical experience.

You have to play at a higher level of cricket all the time. To do that we must have a strong domestic competition. There is a gap between international cricket and our domestic cricket. We need to upgrade club cricket to a professional level. Our domestic cricket is far behind countries like Australia and South Africa and every other international cricket playing country possibly, with the exception of Zimbabwe.

Talent cannot be relied on forever, they must have the proper breeding grounds. Today's coach must not be thoroughly knowledgeable in the game, but must also develop fitness skills, motivate players, build psychological strength and in general, be a guiding force for the individual and the team. The modern game requires a strong governing body bent at developing the game."

Source :: Daily News (https://www.lanka.net)